


A Private War

by orphan_account



Category: Colditz (1972)
Genre: Baby, Broken, Declarations Of Love, End of War, F/M, Horst Mohn's parents - Freeform, Horst Mohn's siblings - Freeform, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Violence, PTSD, Pregnant, Suicidal Thoughts, domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3760573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna wants to fight for her love but this is one war that Mohn has already given up on before it has even started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Private War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Judopixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judopixie/gifts).



> Based on the prompt by Judopixie and on our shared headcanon of Horst's childhood and war years. The events are loosely set around the first half of the episode Chameleon, s2 e11.

Josef was standing besides Anna as she stood behind the counter.

'Anna wants to have a word with you. In private.' He says in a whisper. He didn't want that man from the Geheime Feldpolizei to overhear any of their conversation. He had been lurking too much around this pub. Horst nods and glances sideways over his shoulder. There was the officer of the GFP in plain clothes pretending to be drunk. He stands out among the crowd, even though he tries hard to blend in.

He's trying too hard, Mohn thinks smiling.

He goes upstairs with Josef following at his heels, wondering what Anna wanted. He hadn't seen her since last month when they had made love passionately in her room. He was grateful to her for making him forget everything during those precious moments when they were locked in each other's arms. He wished forgetfulness but his memory would not oblige. It cruelly taunted him with the past, when he was awake and asleep.

He had tried calling her last week but she had been cryptic and moody on the phone and he had hung up quickly because Ulmann was knocking at the door.  
Ulmann had brought Colonel Preston's complaint to him in the Kommandant's absence. Colonel Preston wanted to complain about the rations. He wondered when the prisoners would stop complaining. They had it pretty good here. Alright, so the rations were getting smaller but that was the case everywhere in Germany, Colditz was no exception.  
He and his men had to live on soup made from potato skins early on in Stalingrad. Later, they would be lucky if they found a few bugs to chew. They had killed and eaten almost anything they could find including horses, dogs and cats, so desperate were the circumstances. He would have given anything for a couple of mice to kill and roast. Complaining about rations, he almost laughed.

He hadn't seen Anna since that time. He wonders what it was that she wanted to talk about. It seemed from her manner that it was urgent too. Josef too was looking grave.

'Can I have a moment alone with Horst, Josef.' she smiles at her brother.

He seems reluctant to leave the room but does so, leaving the door slightly ajar. 

                                                                                       

'Are you sure Anna?' Mohn paces up and down the room lost in thought, as Anna watches his face nervously. The room was bare save for a table and two chairs in the middle.

'Yes, Horst, I'm sure. Well?'

'Well, what Anna?'

'What shall we do? Shall we get married?'

'You know Anna that can't happen till the war is over. I can't commit to anything right now...'

'Can't or won't Horst? I've told you I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't want anything too lavish, just a simple wedding with us and Josef as a witness.'

'Don't you see Anna, this war...I'm not the same man that you fell in love with Anna. I have nightmares, I can't sleep all night, sometimes I still think I'm at Stalingrad and watching everyone; Fritz, Hans, Dieter, Heinrich and all the others die over and over again like a bad film that won't end.

'Look.' He holds out his hands, they are shaking, 'They only stop shaking when I have a gun in my hand, Anna. Is this the man you want to spend the rest of your life with?'

'Yes,' she cries with tears in her eyes, 'I still love you. We'll get through this. This is our own private war. We'll fight it out, I promise.'

'I can't fight anymore, Anna.' His eyes were weary and he was looking in the distance as he said that. 'Sometimes I think it would have been better had I died when that Russian put his bayonet inside me. At that time I just wished for a chance, no matter how slim, to live. It was all I thought of, day and night, to escape from the pain at the hospital. What ungrateful creatures we are, Anna, never happy with what we have.'

'Horst,' Anna comes to him and strokes his shoulders and kisses his cheek. She hopes he would understand that she knew how much he suffered.

                                                                                  

She had watched over him, all those times they had made love, and had seen his eyelashes flutter as he slept and his heartbeat slow down as she rested her head on his chest. She had also heard his screams as he dreamt and saw his tears as he struggled with one of his nightmares. It was either Crete or Stalingrad usually. That night last month, it was Belgium. He had never talked about Belgium except to say he had received a medal for his bravery there in 1940. She wondered what the horrors were, that were too unspeakable to mention when he was awake.

He kept muttering, 'He's only a boy. Don't kill him.'

Kill who? She wondered.

He woke up drenched in sweat and tears. She tried to comfort him but he pushed her away and dressed and quietly left in the middle of the night as if he were ashamed.

Ashamed of what? She thought, Everything that he had seen and done in battle or of us making love?

                                                                                                                 

Horst looks at Anna, 'Get rid of it.' he finally says quietly.

'Horst! How can you even suggest such a thing?'

'Look at the bright side, you're more likely to be killed in an air raid before it's due and might not have to make that choice.'

She slaps him hard across the cheek and then runs from the room towards her brother who is standing near the door. Josef comforts her while glancing angrily at Horst and they go downstairs.

Mohn sits on one of the chairs, his stomach hurting, his shoulder stiff and cold but his eyes are pricking with hot tears and his face is tired and unhappy and still smarting from the slap. He tries to cry but even tears have abandoned him. They abandoned him long ago. He had cried till it hurt, cried for Fritz, Hans, Bruno and all the others, cried till he was an emotionless, broken, empty shell.  
He couldn't marry Anna, he couldn't make her happy and he knew that. She would come to resent him in a year or two.

He knew that he could never love another human being. He had convinced himself that people were unimportant but that was not the truth. He couldn’t care about someone. Is that what that child deserved? He deserved a loving family and a father who loved him. Horst thought of his father and the memories came rushing back.

He didn't want to be a father like his Papa. He didn't want to scream and shout and hit and be angry and drunk all the time till his children cowered every time they heard his footstep on the door, till they began to read signs of danger in his furrowed brow, till they tried to cover their ears every time he shouted at Mama, yet what else could he give his child? He didn’t deserve to have a child. He didn't deserve love.

Anna wants to fight a battle that Horst knows in his heart he has already lost. They might win the war or, well, the possibly had to be entertained, no matter how faint that they might even lose it. The German radio had started sounding pessimistic in its tone over its monotonous prediction of victory at the end of every day before closing with Heil Hitler, but Horst knows his private war is over. It was over when that bayonet pierced his stomach in Stalingrad. He only wishes that the Russian had been a better marksman and had finished the job.

He takes an ugly vase from the table and breaks it. The sound echoes downstairs and his boots trample over the shards as he quietly walks out of the pub and into the cool air.


End file.
